Sunday, April 01, 2012

Room for One, Room for All

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," democratic deity worship in action! If you've got the God, we've got the seer! Remember Miller beer?

Lots of cheer here. Yesterday I had a lovely lunch with Maebius and Nettle, two dear friends that I rarely see. Proof that you can continue to evolve as a Nature Girl even after leaving the mountains: Maebius taught me how to make a really loud whistle from an acorn cap. Who'da thought? I could have been bouncing shrill whistle sounds off the Allegheny Mountains for decades. Alas ... but never too late to learn a new trick.

Maebius and Nettle and I had a little chat beside the Shrine of the Mists. (It was a misty day, interestingly enough.) Needless to say, the conversation turned to the bored gods and our responsibility towards them.

Recently I joined a national Druid group called ADF. The main reason I joined was to undertake its scholarly program, which is intended to be rigorous and thorough.

One of the things ADF asks its members to do is to choose a pantheon of House Gods. These would be the deities to whom you give honor inside and outside your home.

Actually I had already done that by having an altar to Queen Brighid the Bright in my house and a shrine in the back yard. But the "House Gods" idea is somewhat perplexing all the same.

To me, all Gods and Goddesses are my House Gods. The most ancient deities that have long been forgotten are my House Gods. Sometimes I feel the name-forgotten Ancient Ones stirring around, especially by the shrine, but also indoors. When history forgets groups of people, it also forgets their deities. This is a sad and sorry thing.

What will history say some day about our society and our busy God? Will archeologists find multiple relics depicting a man nailed to a tree and say, "What a barbaric culture that was!" And would they be wrong in making that assumption?

Who has the right to declare one deity better than all others? What egotistical deity would make such a claim and require it to be believed by His or Her followers? Isn't this all a construct of human nature?

An atheist would tell you that all deities are constructs of human nature. I don't buy that, but I do believe that we humans sense a Higher Power and then endow It with all sorts of human characteristics (including gender) that It might not have at all.

Therefore, while I will honor Mannanan Mac Lir as my House God of the shrine, I will still invite each and every bored deity to feast at my table, to marvel at my refrigerator (They can't get over frozen food on a hot day), and to inhale the fragrant steam of a cup of tea.

To my friends far and wide, I say ... bring back the Bored Gods! Those whose names are known, and those who have been relegated to the mists of time. How very sad it is to be forgotten.

I agree, with your latter points. One thing that holds me back from a more organized "druidry" is I take a more animistic/pantheistic/(Egoistic?) spirituality. I've never been fully comnfortable calling on a singular God/Goddess other than at a more "patron saint prayer" sort of level. Even when I was a minister in the Lutheran church, God was more "all out there and nameless" to me.

Still, I understand the value and benefit of a more focussed Practice in faith too. Blessings!